


The Throne of Shelter

by Keenir



Category: Dominion (TV)
Genre: Angel Hierarchy, Coda, Episode Related, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Gen, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking shelter, Alex and Noma encounter one of the Thrones...and Noma recognizes what she is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Throne of Shelter

"You see him?" Noma asked when Alex paused  having so recently come inside this shelter, one of his hands still wrapped around Noma's midsection for support (and a source of strength for her, whether he realized it or not), and one of her hands around his shoulders.

"He sees me," said the broad-brimmed-hat shadowy man Noma had previously seen in the forest.

"And who are you?" Alex asked.

"Have a seat.  Though I am a guest, you are technically the host here, though I will grant that lapses will be made," coming out of the shadows.  "For your hallowed ally is severely wounded, I sense."

Noma tensed, no matter how much it made her upper back sting and hurt doubly so - as dangerous as Michael and Gabriel could be, here was something that could swat them all.  Assuming it cared enough to do so; motivating them had forever been the Father's, as everything else was - _what did they care for now?_

Alex was about to say that they would remain standing, when Noma winced audibly, so he brought her over to a nearby couch, and let her sit across several couch cushions.  "You're a guest?  So this isn't your place?"

"My ilk do not visit this world much.  We let the lower angels play here."

"'Your ilk'?" Alex asked.

"You...?" Noma asked.

The guest said, "This corner of Creation has long been noisy.  With our Father's absence, the noise has grown louder than ever, and we are concerned."

"Will you help us?" Alex asked him.

One arm flapping across as if to shield Alex from the universe being hurled at him.  "Alex...that's not what he's saying," Noma said.

"Your friend is correct," he said.  "It is not the lower angels who are so bickering."

"He's an Ophannim," Noma said.

"Correct, Mashḥit," he replied.  "I am what humans once called a Throne.  I sat between the winged ones and our Father.  Few were greater than I or my siblings."

"Then you can help us end the war," Alex said.  "Wait...what did you call Noma?"

"Ha-Mashḥit.  The Destroyer herself."  Frowning, leaning forwards a little, peering.  "Yoked to a human, heir to dirt and blood."

"Worth it," Noma said, smiling.

"You risk..." the Ophannim asked, "You would risk going to The Place, for this man?"

"I don't question he was chosen," Noma said, as if by rote.  Then she said, meaning every word, "I believe Alex can do it."

A careful pause, a silence.  "You didn't answer my question, mashḥit."

"I would.  Yes."

Another pause, this one longer.  Finally, "Very well, I'll go get something for your wounds.  Wait here," and the Ophannim was gone.

Noma let out a breath, some tension and pain at last daring to leave.

"Noma?" Alex asked.

"I'm okay," she said to assure him.  "Or as okay as I can be."

"How long will he take, getting what you need?"

"I don't know," Noma said.  "Also don't know if he'd know what to get anyway... Thrones tended to hang out where things were coming into existance, when they weren't in the presence of our Father."

"So, what higher angels are to lower angels, Thrones are to everybody else?"

Noma bit back the retort she was about to let fly with at that, when she saw the smile on Alex's face.  She swatted him with one hand, barely enough strength in the action to have bowled over a fly.  "Ha.  And yeah."  She braced herself, no so much for Alex changing her bandage, as for what she was about to say to him: "Alex, about what he said, about me..."

"You're not embarassed about what we did, are you?  I mean, it was a while ago, but -"

"Not that," Noma said, feeling a tinge of red rising in her neck and ears. 

"The place?" Alex asked.  "Is that a bad destination?"

"Its where angels go when we die.  Its not something we talk about to people at all, or even amongst ourselves that much."

"I don't want you to go there, Nomes," Alex said.

"Not sure you get a say, anymore than I do," Noma said, appreciating his words and the emotion behind them.

"Would it help any if I gave you some of my markings?  I mean, Jeep gave them to me, and Michael gave them to him, so there's got to be some sort of a way to transfer..."

Noma shook her head.

"Or...Ha-Mashhit, he called you.  Not just 'an angel'...could you use that to heal?"

 _I could...healing while engaged in the duty I was created for.  I would sooner die than risk you - you're too important._ "No," Noma lied.  She could see that Alex saw right through her lie, and -

"Pillows," Alex said, standing up.  "There have to be some pillows here.  I'll get them and let you lay against them, while we're fixing some medicines for you."

"Alex," she said, one-handedly grabbing his wrist, drawing his eyes back to hers.  "Go.  I'll be fine.  Just need...to rest."

"I'm not leaving you," Alex said. 

"Vega," a one word answer.

"Nomes," he said, brushing her hair back and, when she let go of his wrist, he set her hand across her belly, and went to look for pillows.

"Too kind," she said under her breath with a chuckle.  "And I can't let him linger here when he's needed elsewhere - Vega needs him.  Michael needs him.  Gabriel..." and she snorted. _If I stay here with him, I'll be an anchor, a temptation to remain.  If I heal, I'll be a temptation to strike down his enemies...because there's no question of him asking Michael what the Ophannim meant._

It wasn't Claire that Noma envied - _the woman who gave you a child._ It was bigger than that, more signifigant to her:  _You have a world relying upon you, awaiting you whether they realize it or not.  They will be glad to see you; none have ever been pleased to see me coming their way...except you, Alex._

_And that's why I want you to live, Alex.  I want that even more than Michael does.  Michael did his duty, and told you of how he was called The Flood.  But even Michael was never a mashḥit.  I am._

_Don't ask if I can remove your obstacles, Alex - I don't know that I could stop if I ever started again...you're powerful, Alex, but you're not Him, and He was the only one who could stop me once I got going._

But he didn't ask; as part of Noma had known he wouldn't - which was a part of why he appealed so strongly to her.  And why she considered not being here when he returned with the pillows.

For Alex.

**Author's Note:**

> from the Wiki:  
> The Hebrew Bible includes the Destroyer (ha-mashḥit) who at the Passover in Exodus killed the firstborn of Egypt. Later a "destroying angel" (mal'ak ha-mashḥit) kills many of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 24:15. While in the parallel passage in I Chronicles 21:15 the same "angel of the Lord" is seen by David to stand "between the earth and the heaven, with a drawn sword in his hand stretched out against Jerusalem." Later the angel of the Lord kills 185,000 men of Sennacherib's Assyrian army, thereby saving Hezekiah's Jerusalem in II Kings 19:35. A different term for "destroyer" (memitim) is found in Job 33:22.[1]
> 
> The ophanim or ofanim, also Ophde (Hebrew "wheels" אוֹפַנִּים ’ōphannīm; singular אוֺפָן ’ōphān) refer to the wheels seen on Ezekiel's vision of the chariot (Hebrew merkabah) in Ezekiel 1:15-21. These are first construed as angels in one of the Dead Sea scrolls (4Q405), and as a class of celestial beings in late sections of the Book of Enoch (61:10, 71:7) where with the Cherubim and Seraphim they never sleep, but guard the throne of God.


End file.
